Mendocino County Today: Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2017

• Gressett Letter
• More Rain
• County Finance
• Free Sandbags
• Little Dog
• Hospitality Questions
• County Museum
• Productivity
• Oroville Response
• FB Surprises
• Glass Beach
• Off Roadway
• ATF Notice
• Yesterday's Catch
• Senator Quisling
• Fuzzy Totalitarianism
• Coming Artrocities
• County Vacancies
• Family Planning
• Delusional Billionaires
• Come a'Thistling
• CEO Reports
• Gardening Series
• Man Excluded
• Comfortably Numb
• Any Day Now

A LETTER FROM REX GRESSETT

Boat Sunk, Dog Dead

When Olive was taken to the animal shelter in Ukiah thousands of people reached out to me. Every day I meet people who ask me about the dog. Folks that I do not really think of as readers of the AVA, but who may indeed read the fine little paper say hi. There are a surprising number of them. But the greatest number of people who now know Olive and me discovered us on Facebook, a media that I know very little about.

I try and write newspaper articles. I do not really do or understand Facebook. I know this is shamefully backward of me. When I write, my objective is to narrate. I want to tell what, in the honorable colloquial of newspapers, is referred to as an angle. I write for readers. I want a beginning, a middle, and an end. I try to the best of my ability to do a bang-up article but the mode of expression is archaic newspaper speak. I want to convey hard information uncovered for the reader by an investigative process. I want to make you mad or happy or outraged or something and do it succinctly. I don’t know Facebook from Chinese.

Because of the story of Olive's abduction, I have learned firsthand the power and reach and penetration of this new thing Facebook (well new to me). So many people have heard of Olive and me that way, so many wished us well, a number sent money. I got enough cash to bail her out and pay for the licensing of all my dogs and get a burger for us all. It was a huge generosity, and I like to think a kind of kiss off to Olive's abductors.

Grocery clerks and stackers, people on the street, have called me by my first name and asked about my dog. A car full of kids drove by me and yelled out the window in kidtalk something unintelligible but clearly supportive of Olive.

Three days after we got Olive home she started bleeding from her nose. It got worse. There was a lot of blood. Olive was what she has always been, a lady. Patient, kind, long suffering, and loyal. I held her and mopped up the blood with kleenex. I took her to the vet, of course, and gave her the lousy pills they tossed at us. She died in my arms four days later. I could not believe it. She was so immensely health when she left for Ukiah.

The same night that Olive died something hit the ship. I reckon it was a big floater. They were coming down the river in ranks, pretty heavy after the rain. I had the radio on low, and when I turned it off to go to bed I heard that terrible sound for a seaman of running water below the decks. I went down and the hull was half way full.

I did what you do. I ran like hell for the Coast Guard and screamed for help at their front gate until I woke some poor kid up and they came over and we all worked hard with their big pump. We worked all night and it became apparent that we could hold it with their pump, but we needed more than the smaller pumps I owned. It was a pretty good hit.

I worked for the dawn, planning and thinking and calculating the way you do. And worked out a plan to go to my friend Paul Katzeff, the smooth proprietor of Thanksgiving Coffee who owns my dock. I figured things might work out, if we could buy some more pumps, but when the day dawned and the world started up, it turned out that Paul was in San Francisco. And his gracious wife (I mean that) Joan would not make the loan. She offered me part of what I needed but I knew right then.

That was Monday morning. Now I am sitting beside the ship and marveling at how graceful and alive it seems as it slips away. I am watching it sink.

The San Juan was built in 1929, she is 81 feet of cedar and oak. Still strong, not rotten in the least. It has been too long since she had a botto job and she loos a little rough and has not that much value in industrial fishing, but everybody that was born here, knows the ship. Knew. In Fort Bragg they kill boats, even graceful wonderful ones, in methodical business-like ways as they improve their fishing fortunes. There is no real sympathy for my poetic bullshit. Shit.

I know this is a great deal of crying. I ought to suck it up and let it go. But I have lived for 15 years on the old boat. Ten of that with Olive. I have learned to be a writer, not a really good one, but a newspaper writer, a practical, easy kind of thing that I hope serves some real social and political purpose. I know I don’t write all that well. I just do my thing and because they are short and, I hope, punchy people read them. I learned how to do that living here on the ship. It is not nothing but it is not all that much. Still, damn, there are a lot of things I learned and read and thought here. A river can teach you things and that is true.

It was a lot of tragedy in a short span. And that is why I decided I would write it down. Tragedy happens. People get hit. Millions of us. Millions of people who we will never know get creamed and run out and evicted and sick. It happens with dismal regularity. It is common and not pretty but I wanted to write about it anyway, just because it is a story that happens zillions of times almost always in quietude and obscurity, and I thought that was an angle worth noting. It is sad, awful, and it does happen all the time. Most of us have to overcome. Of course I am very sad about Olive. Stricken. But so also are millions of us stricken. We should think about that. Maybe you do.

As I said, in an article there has to be an ending, a conclusion, a point. And there is one here. I have taken a bump and stepped out into that enormous ocean of people that have also taken vicious bumps, hard hits. Harder than this one. Most of them don’t cry in their beer like I am doing, at least not so publicly, and but I just wanted to point out that in the end, all that drink from the fountain of fucking disaster have a sort of crown of laurels. Unacknowledged to be sure. They are the salt and the grist and the substance of the long march of humans, damn it. It is not all glory, you know. A great deal of it is just what this is. A bummer. But the march goes on. And you watch, so will I.

NO SIGNIFICANT CHANGE IN FORECAST: A week of winter rain starting on Thursday with a short break on Saturday.

A COUPLE of weeks ago, Sheriff Allman got real mad at the Supervisors. The Sheriff wanted a rescue Snow Cat, a tractor, basically, to extract people from life threatening circumstances in Mendocino County's many miles of remote, snow-bound winter mountains.

THE SUPES said no, advising the Sheriff to come back with his request at mid-summer budget time. By then, snow emergencies are past and unlikely to resume until late October.

THE SHERIFF was very unhappy at the refusal and has since arranged to purchase the crucial equipment out of the law enforcement slush fund amassed through dope interdictions and let's make a deal legal bargains conducted by the DA.

IT HAS GONE unmentioned, and even the Sheriff hasn't brought it up again, but during his Snow Cat request in open session of the Supe's meeting, Supervisor Gjerde, ordinarily the very soul of discretion, mentioned, during his reply to the Sheriff's Snow Cat request, that the Sheriff, in a closed session discussion with the Supes, had asked for conversion of a surplus Savings Bank building on West Perkins to a Sheriff's sub-station. The request was not supposed to have been made public but there it was.

I ASKED GJERDE why he'd outed the Sheriff's request. He evaded the outing part of the question but explained that his, and presumably his colleagues', "primary concern wasn't the purchase price of the Saving Bank building. The bigger issue was the inability of County taxpayers to afford to pay the ongoing costs for extra staff, along with maintenance, of yet another county building," going on to quite reasonably put in wider County fiscal perspective the overall financial situation of the good ship, Mendo:

"It's important to remember that the County has already pledged a local match of up to $2 million to a possible State grant that would construct a new wing for the jail. If built, that means the County is pledging to pay for an extra 10 employees. In today's dollars, the extra jail payroll will cost the County more than $1.2 million a year, all from local tax dollars.

"That said, the County is simply not in a position to carry the costs of hiring additional employees,

"Students of Mendocino history are well aware of what has prompted the fiscal crisis Mendocino County has faced since 2008. A series of 'popular' but financially unsustainable votes, many in the 1990s and early 2000s have given us a County pension system that is underfunded by roughly $200 million and a County road system that is underfunded by roughly $600 million."

"The County is making progress to dig itself out from this mess. To succeed, however, all parts of County government need to work for the long-term."

FREE SANDBAGS Due to impending heavy rains and flood warnings, Friedman's has activated our Free Sandbag Flood Alert Program. Customers can come to any Friedman's location and receive 20 free bags. Free sand will be provided in each store's Express Yard as well as all of the tools needed to help fill these bags.

LITTLE DOG SAYS, “Whoopee! Pitchers and catchers are reporting, but it's going to take me another few months to forgive Bochy for pulling Moore in the playoff game with Chicago last season. Us Giants shoulda gone to the World Series, not the Cubs. Bochy blew it!”

QUESTIONS OF HOSPITALITY & RUFFING

How do you top the story of the Fort Bragg City Council approving an ordinance that provides for cannabis manufacturing within the industrial zones of city limits. With four magic words that at once ignite and divide public sentiment in Mendocino County's second largest municipality: Mendocino Coast Hospitality Center.

On Monday night, February 13, the cannabis measure was adopted by a unanimous 4-0 vote (Councilman Dave Turner was out of town) with nary a grumble in the forty person audience. On the other hand, the Hospitality Center, situated in what was once the Old Coast Hotel at 101 N. Franklin Street, and its flagship entity Hospitality House (237 N. McPherson St.) prompted public comments of support and many more questioning its ability to function within Fort Bragg's downtown business district.

All four councilmembers present asked Mendocino Coast Hospitality Center (MCHC) Board President Lynelle Johnson tough questions, beginning with Mayor Lindy Peters who wanted to know if MCHC's funding through grants was secure into the future. Ms. Johnson essentially dodged a straightforward answer by replying that MCHC is always looking for new grants. Peters asked about Hospitality Center (HC) and Hospitality House's (HH) relationship with neighbors. Ms. Johnson ducked again, citing her role with the “Downtown Watch,” an ad hoc group which has devolved into a pat-each-other-on-the-back gathering of pro-Hospitality business owners (a scant handful), most of whom are outside the immediate sphere of negative behaviors emanating from HH and HC. The negatives are: clientele who use drugs, are drunk, take food from HH and turn it into garbage on the streets, spit on neighbors doors and windows, urinate on neighbors walls, leave human and canine feces unattented on neighbors' property; the list goes on. The additional, and probably more important, negative is this: HH and HC staff and its Board are in denial about the mounting public safety issues that some of their clients are creating on the streets of Fort Bragg.

As questions from Councilmembers Will Lee, Mike Cimolino, and Bernie Norvell followed those from Mayor Peters something did become clear: Ms. Johnson, occasionally accompanied by MCHC chief operations officer, Paul Davis, were not going to give straight answers. Case in point: the packet of supporting materials for the MCHC agenda item contained more than two dozen emails from a business owner near Hospitality House, describing in detail almost daily instances of essentially criminal behavior going on in the alleyway behind HH (See my Nov. 16, 2016 article for just a few examples; similar behavioral incidents have continued through today). In response to questions from Councilman Norvell about the problems described in the emails from the business neighbor of HH, Paul Davis stated that he had been in more or less constant contact with said business owner. Councilman Norvell more or less flatly contradicted Davis, as in something to the effect that the business owner had seldom, if ever, received any responses to the emails. Readers may want to keep in mind that the business owner who sent the emails pointing out problems right outside HH's gate, problems/incidents involving HH's clientele, also included possible solutions in several of the emails. No one, including Mr. Davis, even bothered to respond to those emails.

In Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird there is a line that reads, “The truth is not in the Delafields.” When it comes to the Hospitality House, the truth is not in Ms. Johnson or Mr. Davis. Lee's narrator Scout Finch goes on to expand on her thought, “[These] were simply guides to daily living: never take a check from a Delafield without a discreet call to the bank.”

Back to the emails. There appear to be about twenty-seven of them in the supporting materials packet for the February 13^th city council meeting. Reliable sources indicate that there were more, but some may have been withheld to protect the identity of the business owner and family members. Why does the business owner feel the need to remain anonymous. Simple, cursory conversations with other business owners will let you know that they either don't want to get involved, though they share similar questions, concerns, and frustrations. In addition some, if not many, business owners in Fort Bragg feel that HH and HC have been treated like sacred cows by city government in the recent past. Whether or not that is the absolute truth, folks are wary of speaking up about issues connected to Hospitality Center or Hospitality House.

At the risk of burying the lead, I've left an elephant in the Town Hall room out until this point. A simple glance at the emails sent regarding a laundry list of ongoing problems around Hospitality House  made this reader stop at one dated January 19, 2017 (the emails run from late October, 2016 into February, 2017). At this point the business owner gave up addressing the emails to HH and/or HC and took the matter up with Fort Bragg's City Manager, Linda Ruffing.

The Jan. 19^th email to Ms. Ruffing redacts the business owner's name and address. Otherwise, this is the entirety of it:

"My name is __________ My husband and I were born and raised in Fort Bragg, and have a deep love for this unique and special community.

"I have a business located at ______________ in Fort Bragg which shares an alley with the Hospitality House at 237 N. McPherson Street. The City did a beautiful job of putting in this alley, and it should be a pleasant and convenient way to to go to the post office, get a gallon of milk from my neighbors at Purity and say hello to the people receiving services at the Hospitality House.

"Instead, it is full of feces, garbage, urine, loitering, drugs, alcohol and physical fighting among Hospitality Center clients who are waiting for services, creating a dangerous and insanitary environment. It is unsafe for those using services as well as residents and visitors, who are vital to our town's economy. The Hospitality House should provide full time staff monitoring people showing up for sign in and services, just as they provide staff for full time monitoring of the emergency shelter service. At this time, there are no staff monitoring the clients waiting for services in the alley, and this is unsafe for all concerned.

“I am sending over, in separate emails, several letters I have already sent regarding this subject. The situation remains unchanged and I am hopeful that the City of Fort Bragg will help in solving this problem. Please let me know your thoughts on this issue and how we may best address it. I would love to see the alley [behind HH] safe for everyone to walk, drive down and use. I care about my store and community. I have invested time and money and am deeply committed to both.

“Our community has great potential for growth in all areas and I look forward to working together to make our town a great place to live and work.

“Please make sure this email and the others I am sending to you are sent to Fort Bragg City Council.

“Thank you for your consideration and your service to our city.”

When did City Manager Ruffing send the emails to the City Council members? As far as can be ascertained, she waited until February 8^th when the agenda for the Feb. 13^th city council meeting was made public. In the meantime Ms. Ruffing went around to several of the shop owners in the business district gathering information and very possibly contacted Ms. Johnson of MCHC on more than one occasion. Meanwhile the Fort Bragg City Council members had four to five days, including a weekend, to pursue the topics broached in these emails after Ms. Ruffing received them from the business owner. Certainly Ms. Ruffing is entitled to do as much research on a civic matter as possible, but withholding the emails from the City Council for approximately twenty days leads to ethical questions best left to the citizens of Fort Bragg to raise for themselves.

The very same Hospitality House/Hospitality Center issue will be taken up again by the Fort Bragg City Council's Public Safety Committee (Mayor Peters and Councilman Norvell  will be there) on Wednesday, February 15, at 3 p.m. In Town Hall.

–Malcolm Macdonald

MIKE WILLIAMS POINTS OUT:

Re: Historical Archives — The County Museum holds much much more than one might think. The Aginsky papers are a vast treasure trove of research from the ’30’s – 50’s, conducted by the Social Science Field Laboratory. While a bit controversial in their methods, the Aginsky’s ended up writing that strange little book “Deep Valley.” You do the Hudson Museum a dis-service by suggesting that it is all about the “happy papoose”. Besides the files of Grace and John Hudson, there is much more, including material by Ukiah High grad 1899, and first Masters in Anthro at UC Berkeley, Samuel A Barrett. Barrett had a remarkable career that ultimately resulted in Native American films before he passed away in the early ’60s. Check him out.”

YEAH, you're right, Mike. I just wish there was some coordination, a central index listing what exactly the County's collective archive consists of and where to find it.

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY

FEMA APPROVES OROVILLE DAM SPILLWAY & JANUARY STORM DISASTER DECLARATION REQUESTS

by Dan Bacher

Just hours after the Butte County Sheriff reduced the immediate evacuation order of Oroville region residents to an evacuation warning, President Donald Trump and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) today approved both recent gubernatorial requests for federal assistance – one to support the response to the situation at Oroville Dam and the other to help with the impacts of January storms.

“I want to thank FEMA for moving quickly to approve our requests,” said California Governor Jerry Brown in a statement. “This federal aid will get money and resources where it’s needed most.”

A press release from the White House said Robert J. Fenton, the Acting Administrator of FEMA, Department of Homeland Security, has named Timothy J. Scranton as the Federal Coordinating Officer for Federal recovery operations in the impacted areas.

Yesterday, Governor Brown met with emergency response officials and sent a letter to President Donald Trump and FEMA requesting a Presidential Emergency Declaration for Direct Federal Assistance to support the communities impacted by the situation at the Oroville Dam's emergency spillway.

“Separately, last Friday, Governor Brown requested a Presidential Major Disaster Declaration for the state to bolster ongoing state and local recovery efforts following January storms that caused additional flooding, mudslides, erosion, power outages and damage to critical infrastructure across California,” according to the Governor’s Office.

On Sunday, Governor Brown declared a state of emergency to bolster the state’s response to the situation in Oroville and support local evacuations. The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services has also activated the State Operations Center in Mather, California to its highest level and is coordinating with personnel at the Incident Command Post in Oroville, California and with other local, state and federal emergency response officials to address all emergency management needs.

More information on state and federal disaster declarations can be found here.

The Butte County Sheriff’s Office today reduced the immediate evacuation order to an evacuation order, allowing residents in the region impacted by the order to return to their homes and businesses.

“Due to lower lake levels, further inspections, ongoing work to shore-up the Oroville Dam emergency spillway and updated weather forecasts, effective at 1:00 p.m. today, the Evacuation Order for the Oroville Dam Spillway Incident has been reduced to an Evacuation Warning," according to a statement from the Butte County Sheriff’s Office. “Any resident displaced by the evacuation may return home at 1:00 p.m.; however all residents are advised to remain vigilant and prepared as conditions can rapidly change. People who have special needs or require extended time to evacuate should consider remaining evacuated. An Evacuation Warning means the immediate threat has ended but the potential for an emergency remains and therefore residents must remain prepared for the possibility of an Evacuation Order.”  (www.dailykos.com/...)

On Sunday, February 12, state officials ordered the evacuation of over 188,000 people from Butte, Yuba and Sutter Counties.

On the following day, members of the newly-formed Delta Caucus of the California Legislature on February 13 issued a statement regarding the “hazardous situation” at Oroville Dam after The Mercury News reported that previous concerns about the safety of the Dam’s current infrastructure were ignored.

They said they have a “duty to ensure California’s existing infrastructure is maintained and upgraded, and not sacrificed in favor of conveyance projects,” referring to Governor Jerry Brown’s plan to build two massive water tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the largest estuary on the West Coast of the Americas.

The following bipartisan group of legislators endorsed this statement: Senator Bill Dodd (Co-Chair), D-Napa; Senator Richard Pan, D-Sacramento; Assemblymember Jim Frazier (Co-Chair), D-Oakley; Assemblymember Susan Talamantes Eggman, D-Stockton; Assemblymember Catharine Baker, R-Dublin; Assemblymember Jim Cooper, D-Elk Grove; Assemblymember Tim Grayson, D-Concord:

“We are concerned that a clear alarm raised 12 years ago about the state of the Oroville Dam’s emergency spillway was discounted. There has been more than enough time since then for upgrades and maintenance to the structure. Instead, nearly 185,000 people have been displaced, and there are still people in harm’s way.

A catastrophic failure at Oroville would result in uncontrolled releases that do considerably more harm to the surrounding communities, and threaten those further downstream, including levee-protected communities in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. For now, we have a collective responsibility to ensure that people are safe and that necessary steps are taken to prevent further compromise of the entire Oroville facility.  

When the immediate threats have subsided, we need to clearly assess this disaster and its causes.  We have a duty to ensure California’s existing infrastructure is maintained and upgraded, and not sacrificed in favor of conveyance projects.” 

For more information, go to: www.dailykos.com/...

* * *

DELTA LEGISLATORS AND ADVOCATES RESPOND TO 'ALARMING' OROVILLE DAM FIASCO

by Dan Bacher

A day after state officials ordered the evacuation of over 188,000 people from Butte, Yuba and Sutter Counties, members of the newly-formed Delta Caucus of the California Legislature on February 13 issued a statement regarding the “hazardous situation” at Oroville Dam after The Mercury News reported that previous concerns about the safety of the Dam’s current infrastructure were ignored.

They said they have a “duty to ensure California’s existing infrastructure is maintained and upgraded, and not sacrificed in favor of conveyance projects,” referring to Governor Jerry Brown’s plan to build two massive water tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the largest estuary on the West Coast of the Americas.

The following bipartisan group of legislators said they wished to be part of this  statement: Senator Bill Dodd (Co-Chair), D-Napa; Senator Richard Pan, D-Sacramento; Assemblymember Jim Frazier (Co-Chair), D-Oakley; Assemblymember Susan Talamantes Eggman, D-Stockton; Assemblymember Catharine Baker, R-Dublin; Assemblymember Jim Cooper, D-Elk Grove; Assemblymember Tim Grayson, D-Concord:

“We are concerned that a clear alarm raised 12 years ago about the state of the Oroville Dam’s emergency spillway was discounted. There has been more than enough time since then for upgrades and maintenance to the structure. Instead, nearly 185,000 people have been displaced, and there are still people in harm’s way.

A catastrophic failure at Oroville would result in uncontrolled releases that do considerably more harm to the surrounding communities, and threaten those further downstream, including levee-protected communities in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. For now, we have a collective responsibility to ensure that people are safe and that necessary steps are taken to prevent further compromise of the entire Oroville facility.  

When the immediate threats have subsided, we need to clearly assess this disaster and its causes.  We have a duty to ensure California’s existing infrastructure is maintained and upgraded, and not sacrificed in favor of conveyance projects.” 

The legislators released their statement just prior to Governor Jerry Brown’s meeting with emergency response officials at the State Operations Center in Mather regarding the ongoing response to the situation at the Oroville Dam's emergency spillway and subsequent local evacuations.

On February 12, Brown declared a state of emergency to help mobilize disaster response resources and support the local evacuations. “The Governor's Office of Emergency Services has activated the State Operations Center in Mather, California to its highest level and is coordinating with personnel at the Incident Command Post in Oroville, California and with other local, state and federal emergency response officials to address all emergency management, evacuation and mutual aid needs,” according to a statement from the Governor’s Office.

Two organizations opposed to Governor Brown’s Delta Tunnels also responded  to the  breach in the Oroville auxiliary spillway and the evacuation of  over 188,000 people from Butte, Yuba and Sutter Counties.

Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Executive Director of Restore the Delta (RTD), commented on the current situation, Oroville Dam, how the crisis was preventable, what should be done next, and the California WaterFix.

On the current situation, Barrigan-Parrilla  said, “We are hopeful that the Department of Water Resources (DWR) can continue to keep the situation at Oroville under control.”

“We are grateful for all the courageous and hardworking people working day and night to keep the region safe – from DWR employees to public safety officials. The evacuations seem to have been successfully executed,” explained Barrigan-Parrilla.

On Oroville Dam:  “This dam is the primary reservoir for the State Water Project. One-third of Southern California’s water is State Water Project water. Oroville Dam also is the source for a portion of Bay Area water deliveries. Making Oroville safe is essential and must take priority over any other water project in the state,” she said.

Barrigan-Parrilla also emphasized that the crisis was preventable. “The Mercury News is reporting that Federal and State officials ignored warnings 12 years ago. Three environmental groups — the Friends of the River, the Sierra Club and the South Yuba Citizens League — filed a motion with the federal government on Oct. 17, 2005, as part of Oroville Dam’s relicensing process, urging federal officials to require that the dam’s emergency spillway be armored with concrete, rather than remain as an earthen hillside. They warned that the spillway could erode during heavy winter rains and cause a catastrophe.”

“FERC rejected that request, however, after the state Department of Water Resources, and the State Water Contractors argued that they would likely have had to pay the bill for the upgrades. They said the upgrades were unnecessary. The State Water Contractors & Metropolitan Water District of Southern California’s outsized influenced on DWR to NOT upgrade the emergency spillway is a story that must be thoroughly investigated once the emergency has passed,” said Barrigan-Parrilla.

“Because of this penny pinching, residents of these water districts will lose a significant portion of their water supply for this year. And almost 200,000 lives in the region downstream from the Oroville Dam have been disrupted, physically and economically (with no clear date set for when they can return home). Another series of storms are expected from Thursday through Tuesday of next week,” she stated.

“Millions of Chinook salmon have had to be relocated from the hatchery, with outcomes of disruption to their life cycle to be seen. Swollen rivers filled with debris can have negative impacts on public safety downstream and on wildlife, as levees will experience extreme pressure from emergency flows,” she added.

What Should Be Done? “Safety comes first. Before spending a dime on any gold-plated, taxpayer-backed, water delivery service to agricultural interests, we need to upgrade our 678 high hazard dams in California. Making those facilities safe is now the priority over projects such as the Delta Tunnels that will largely serve industrial agricultural interests in the southern San Joaquin Valley.  We need to remind our state water resources agency that they really work for the people of California, not the water districts,” she said.

What about the Delta Tunnels? “The Delta Tunnels are only 10% designed, with no seismic analysis, and no full soil samples, yet DWR is leading the charge for state and federal permits for the project. Are they going to repeat history with the Delta Tunnels and ignore the warnings that the design is flawed, and the impacts to health and human safety, and the environment are serious?” concluded Barrigan-Parrilla.

Food & Water Watch’s California Director Adam Scow said the current crisis should be a “wake up call” to state officials.

“The crisis at the Oroville Dam should be a wake up call to State leaders that we should fix existing water infrastructure before spending billions on questionable projects like the proposed Delta tunnels and Sites Reservoir,” he stated. “Repairing Oroville Dam will likely cost between $100 and $200 million and could force higher water rates throughout California.”

“California has more than one thousand dams, many of which are older than the Oroville Dam. Rising temperatures mean more rain and less snow, increasing the likelihood of future spillovers and similar crises. It is time for Governor Brown to stop wasting taxpayer dollars on new projects that will benefit California’s largest corporate agribusiness and for him to fix California’s crumbling water systems,” said Scow.

Governor Jerry Brown and administration officials, now under scrutiny by local, state, national and international media for their handling of the Oroville Dam crisis, have continually portrayed their environmental policies as “green.” However, twelve public interest groups, led by Consumer Watchdog and Food & Water Watch, challenged Governor Brown’s “green” credentials at a press conference in Santa Monica on February 4.

The groups unveiled a comprehensive report card on Jerry Brown Administration’s environmental record showing he falls short in six out of seven key areas, including fossil fuel generated electricity, oil drilling, and coastal protection.

The report calls for a moratorium on the building of natural gas powered electricity plants, given what they described as “the glut of electric capacity” and calls for an outside audit of state’s energy needs. The groups showed how California can improve its environmental protections to meet standards set in other states.

The report, noting that Brown’s infrastructure projects, led by the California WaterFix, “deplete water resources and threaten wildlife,” also urges the Governor to abandon the Twin Tunnels project.

The public interest groups concurring in the report’s analysis, assessments, and recommendations include:  Food & Water Watch, Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles, Restore The Delta, Rootskeeper, Powers Engineering, Basin and Range Watch, Aguirre & Severson LLP, Public Watchdogs, Southern California Watershed Alliance, The Desal Response Group, Committee to Bridge the Gap, and Consumer Watchdog.

“Far from the environmentalist that Brown claims to be, Brown has expanded the burning of heat-trapping natural gas and nurtured oil drilling and hydraulic fracturing while stifling efforts to protect the public from harm,” the report says. “The Public Utilities Commission has approved a slew of unnecessary new fossil-fuel power plants when the state's three major investor-owned utilities have overbuilt their generating capacity by nearly triple the minimum extra capacity that the state requires. Under Brown, the number of active onshore oil and gas wells jumped by 23 percent since the year before he was elected Governor in a bid to produce more oil.”

Read the report “How Green Is Jerry Brown?” at www.consumerwatchdog.org/..

FORT BRAGG NOTES

by Rex Gressett

Sometimes life amazes you. Something happens and suddenly you get a new slant on what you have taken for granted. What was peripheral becomes more central than you originally thought it was, what was routine is somehow exposed as remarkable.

For we see but through a mirror darkly. But then face to face.

In general, democratic self-government is a distant cliché. The phrase has almost lost all meaning. I mean the actual empowerment of the governed to govern themselves without reference to those powerful interests that always exist, that live up the hill in the castle, that run things from the country club, that work ceaselessly and secretly with inexhaustible energy to polish privilege and stack the deck. They tell us what the rules are, after they have made arrangements without our participation.

There are so many powers in so many places and so much arrangement that eludes even our knowledge. With a sneer, if we see them at all, they make a mockery of our pretentions to freedom and a joke of autonomous self-government.

We hold self determination as an ideal in our hearts. We dodge the bullets when we can. We start our cars and go forward every day to do what we must to protect our families and build our fortunes. We live in the decency and mutual respect of free people in our private lives.

Sometimes it bites you in the ass. You can go to prison for nothing. You had better believe that. They can stop you on the road and take the money in your pocket without a warrant and without an apology and they don’t have to give it back even if they never prove anything. In Fort Bragg they cannot fund the police department without the benefit of that little trick.

The men and women that we have trusted with the responsibility of leadership do not always edify.

But in spite of it all, it is my considered opinion that in Mendocino county we have not entirely forgotten what it means to be free men and women.

I did as much as I could in the last election to effect, in that ancient and honorable phrase, a kicking of the bums out. A great many people in our little burg concurred. They talked together, planted their yard signs, went to the polls, and indeed the bums were quite substantively kicked.

In 2016 the people of the City of Fort Bragg rejected by substantial margins the shopworn smiley face crap that harmonious professional congeniality and smooth glib mutual congratulation were the substance and totality of our governance. We knew better because our forefathers were stubborn honorable men and women, with their feet planted solidly in the dirt of experience, who knew in their bones that without dialogue, debate, contention and struggle no people on earth could do the hard work to call the shots and piss off privilege when necessary and therein earn the right to be a community of free people.

Actually by the advent of the last election the worst denigrators of popular sovereignty had sniffed outrage in the political wind, and ingloriously jumped ship. Still swearing as they went out the back door that if everyone would simply be dumb and happy a government of seamless unanimity would take care of everything. It was a philosophy of democratic governance dumbed down to a Disney cartoon.

Sometimes life surprises you. The city council that replaced the happy face crowd and who owes its loyalty to the people who elected them and knows it, is about to take a big chunk of change out of the money that the city gets from the charge on hotel occupancies. Money that has already been allocated. They are going to address a matter that has already been settled.

The city’s transit occupancy (aka bed) tax, the TOT, is some of the only money that the city gets on its own and keeps for itself without the interference of the state or the feds or for that matter the county. In 2014 that tax was increased by two percent, resulting in a $400,000 increase in our money. Half of it was earmarked for marketing.

The city manager had noticed that a small group of hard working smart women entrusted (against her original strong opposition) with the business of marketing the city to the wider world, in a tiny office with a minuscule budget had plastered images and tweets of the city of Fort Bragg and of our spectacular coast all over social media and increased hits to their site by thousands of percentage points. Thousands. Business anecdotally in the dreary winter of '16 was surprisingly good. Sharon Davis, unaffiliated with the government, CEO of the private Chamber of Commerce, had quietly, as the phrase is, knocked one out of the park. The response of the city manager to this astonishing success was first to sneer. And then having done that to take $200,000 of the $400,000 available in the new TOT money earmarked for marketing out and use it to do the same job that Sharon Davis and her tight, smart team at Visit Fort Bragg were doing, but out of city hall, using city employees under her administration. It is a done deal.

Right. Have city employees do it. The same intrepid people who stumble and tax and levy and obstruct with such vigor when you need a license to do anything. It can take a year to start a business in the city. They are perfect.

There was some confusion until recently about whether a city councilman was even allowed to put an item on the agenda that City Manager Linda Ruffing puts together to define and delimit the deliberations of the Council. Well, there is an item on it now, or will be as soon as it comes out, put there by a councilman. An unusual item since it does not come from the city manager and opposes what has been hitherto unopposed. An item that takes the money back from the city hall elite and gives it back to the local folks at Visit Fort Bragg who have done a damn fine job. $200k. It has not passed yet, but since 2016 we have a voting majority and I have spoken to them.

Sometimes life does surprise you.

You won’t read about that in the Advocate. They don’t know.

CAPTAIN GLASS BEACH'S COMPLAINT

Hello Chief;

I was down at Glass Beach today for the first time since the city illegally fenced off Site 2 after their illegal non-code, steps caused serious injury last Fall. I just get too angry when I go down there, now. Not good for my health....... I only went down because someone told me they had begun building new steps and I wanted to see what they were doing: nothing, it seems.

At the time they fenced off the entire headland above Site 2, I ran an ad in the Advocate for the public record noting that the land south of the old GP fence line that ran east-west along the old path, and west of the old GP fence line that ran north-south along the headlands, was long established public domain land, a public right-of-way for at least 70 years to Site 2 and the coves where the pipes come out at the southern end of Site 3 (Glass Beach).

Today I noticed the city has tried to fence this access off, which is an illegal act.

As a heads up to you, I am advising that since they pulled their killer steps up and illegally fenced off site 2, I have been directing people to use the old public domain access, which they are trying to now illegally fence off.

With the tourist season starting to pick up, I hope you will advise your officers that people who cross that new line are not acting illegally and are in no way in violation of the law.

I get reports of conflicts on the beaches on a regular basis due to the lies being told by the city and park rangers stating that it is illegal to take the glass. This is a dangerous situation that you are suborning by not confronting the illegal actions of the city and state park rangers. Mark my words, someone will get hurt over this. There will either be violence or someone will have a heart attack or stroke. This is unconscionable.

Last July on mendocinotv.com, Loren Rex said that the glass was over 50 years old and therefore archaeological and could therefore not be removed from public trust land, i.e., the beaches. Marie Jones was also there, accepting that the beaches do not belong in any way to the city.

Loren is the head ranger and knows damn well that he is lying. In California the criteria is 100 years and even then the artifact must be tied to a significant event or person to be archaeological. Of course I know this to be true because I have checked with archaeologists who have come into the museum. The glass will never be legally considered anything except dump refuse.

The Coastal Act requires that all accessible beaches be opened to the public. The city is in direct violation of this by denying access to all the beaches along the coastal trail, except those that are native American fishery reserve areas. Three coves at Site 1 used to be regularly open to public access by GP at different times. All the coves from the north end of Glass Beach (Site 3) and the main cove at Site 1 have a record of regular public access. By denying access to these coves the city is in clear violation of the law.

I am contacting you in the hopes we can avoid conflicts between your officers and the general public in the future by you simply educating your officers regarding the law.

As you know, those who contested the tickets your officers handed out last April/May were exonerated by the courts. I am hoping you will see the futility in the lies and deceit.

Of course I am still looking at the possibilities of legal actions against the city.

I hope the rash of cop killings around the country continue to subside as the loony left focuses on Trump instead of you guys.

Capt. Cass Forrington

Sea Glass Museum, Fort Bragg

YOLANDA MARTINEZ, 36, of Gualala was traveling south on Highway 1 north of Gualala at about 5:30pm on Monday, Feb. 13, when she lost control of her 2005 Ford in a curve. The Ford veered off the roadway, collided with trees and overturned down an embankment. Ms. Martinez was able to extricate herself and was subsequently transported by Reach medevac helicopter to Santa Rosa Memorial for treatment of unspecified injuries. Alcohol/drugs not suspected. Seatbelt was worn. (CHP Press Release)

A READER WRITES:

I discovered this at the Ukiah Gun Shop — an ATF notice that any known or suspected MJ user ("addict") cannot possess guns or ammunition. Since MJ is a Class 1 drug, the user is treated as an active felon — since that's the prohibition for a convicted felon. Legal abuses by Trump under this legal interpretation are huge — voting rights denied in some states. Law supersedes any state laws. I talked to Sheriff and County Counsel and was told to consult a Federal Attorney for clarification. There's a contact number at the bottom of the page.

CATCH OF THE DAY, February 14, 2017

JOHN BOLTON IV, Willits. Drunk in public, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

MICHAEL DONAHE, Ukiah. Drunk in public, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

ALEXANDRA ELIZARRA-RAZ, Ukiah. Domestic assault, resisting.

MOE ESPITIA, Fort Bragg. DUI, failure to appear, probation revocation.

TIMOTHY FISCHER, Ukiah. Drunk in public, resisting.

DANIEL GRIFFITH, Eureka/Ukiah. Vandalism.

ROY MILLER, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. DUI.

DERRICK RIDENOUR, Ukiah. Drunk in public, dirk-dagger, probation revocation.

ANGIE VORIS, Willits. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

DUSTIN WOOD, Ukiah. Petty theft, shoplifting, probation revocation.

THE HALO EFFECT & SENATOR SCHUMER

Editor,

It should be a matter of principle that Democrats resist the Trump Administration and Republican Congress at every turn.  Else, why elect them in the first place?  Call it being a loyal opposition.  One can certainly say no and do what one can to the actions of this administration.  But no, Schumer has indicated that he will cooperate, though he alludes to a strategy of “calling the shots” when to oppose.  In the 1930s we saw the results of appeasement.  A world war was the result.  The axis powers were autocratic and violently dealt with anyone standing in their way.  So, what is different when one hears Trump revile opponents, lie, dissemble, and apply empty rhetoric to rile up his supporters?

If the Democrats want to deserve being re-elected and elected, they need to show spine.  We need a strong discourse that points to the flaws and limits to administration actions.  Senator McConnell made it plain in 2009 that he and his colleagues in the Senate would oppose Obama at every turn.  In many ways, he succeeded.   There was no real outcry from Democrats that it was dirty pool or that it was no way to govern in a democracy.  Why not respond with a vigorous opposition?  Trump will still get his way on many things.  Not one of his unqualified or marginally qualified cabinet picks was denied confirmation.  Where was the united outcry over the selection of Michael Flynn, arguably a Russophile as National Security Adviser?  Where is the united opposition to draconian proposals on the economy, trade, foreign relations, Russian meddling with our elections, denial of due process for citizens and undocumented immigrants?  Where is the united outcry over demeaning, even demonizing, the free press?  This last weekend, in a show-off moment in front of a fawning crowd, Trump paraded national security materials on a banquet table, some marked secret or confidential.  He loves to show off and seldom does anyone seem able to curb his rhetoric or self-promoting actions.

No, Senator Schumer, you are not acting like a responsible, loyal opposition.  You are looking very much like a Quisling.  The 2018 elections are not all that far off.  While you are seen handshaking Trump, reportedly a friend of yours from WAY back in New York circles, the world is watching.  The American electorate is watching.  It is time you drew a line in the sand and stand by it.

Franklin Graham

Navarro

VILE BODIES

Italian author Umberto Eco was a man who understood the influences and results of fascism. He wrote that fascism was a not a concrete political system, but a collection of behaviors that, taken together, forged something incomprehensible. "Fascism was a fuzzy totalitarianism," he wrote. "A collage of different philosophical and political ideas, a beehive of contradictions." In 1995 Eco made a visionary prediction: "There is in our future a TV or internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People. It appears that this is where we are now. The president's fascism is new. it's a reality-TV kind of fascism. Typically American, designed to entertain and fed by the internet. The president is its prophet. One need not look any further that to see the rapid rise of xenophobia in our country, how it has occurred, who benefits most from it, how it is legitimized and how it has completely polarized its citizens.

Dennis Kostcki, San Anselmo

FUTURE EYESORE OF THE WEEK

This "artist" is already lined up to deface the other end of Van Ness Avenue.

Below is the "art" planned for Masonic and Geary:

PLEASE APPLY. NO TOUGH QUESTIONS THOUGH.

The list of vacancies, due to term expirations and resignations, for County boards and commissions has been updated with new vacancies. A list of all new and existing vacancies is available on the County website: http://www.co.mendocino.ca.us/bos/boardscommmissionshtm. The below document contains a list of the vacancies that are new.

02-13-17 Vacancy Notice

ELEANOR COONEY wrote to Ellen Rossler: Ellen Rosser just accused me of writing "fiction" re: illegal abortion...Something's missing. If the mother and daughter in your account did  what you say they did, then they are both profoundly mentally ill, to  the point of being aberrant, and therefore useless in illustrating a  point about what you'd like us to believe is typical behavior around  legal abortion. Like exemplifying Jeff Dahmer in a discussion of the  dos and don'ts of neighborly etiquette.

Marco McClean Responds: Exactly. Unlike Ellen Rossler's example, most human abortions, on purpose or acts of Zeus, are sought or happen on their own before the tumor is even the size of a gummi candy or a peanut, when it's still indistinguishable from a frog or chicken embryo. Here: https://www.exploratorium.edu/exhibits/embryo/embryo.html Bringing a pregnancy to term is many times more psychically traumatic and dangerous to a woman's life and health than a safe, quick, painless doctor's office abortion. Ellen focuses on the sadness and regret of some abortion clients but ignores the often lifelong abject misery of millions of women forced by official and traditional superstition or even, ironically, the squeamishness of people not even involved in the decision, to produce baby after bloody baby and then either give it up (also sad, Ellen Rossler, as you put it) or go crazy raising it and then kill it and themselves, which happens all the fucking time. Even sadder, I think. My Catholic cousin's beautiful, happy young wife, on her graduation to womanhood and family life, immediately suffered five miscarriages, one per year, before a living baby resulted, and then she had four more babies who lived, and she died very young, arguably of unhappiness. Being an incubator instead of a person is not necessary anymore. Contraception, and in the very rare cases where it fails, safe medical abortion, have made a whole valued and valuable life possible for hundreds of millions of women who until very recently never had a chance. The human race is not in danger of extinction because of there not being enough babies. It's the other way around. Family planning is life itself. Anti-abortion groups, emboldened by politicians' pandering to them, increasingly have come out against contraception, showing their true colors. And then there's this guy: http://tinyurl.com/JustAnIncubator Cynical interests are about to get the Johnson Amendment ("one of the biggest bricks in the federal wall between church and state") tossed out, so their puppets and base of support in the ecclesiastical community can use the full power of their tax-exempt cults to finish off democracy for good and all, and this development is mainly thanks to the wedge issue of abortion. A third time, sad, Ellen. And if you're just going to repeat your bullshit over and over, I feel comfortable recommending for the fourth or fifth time that you read Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, or if that's too hard and has too many big words and not enough pictures, see the film. Because the Republic of Gilead, the nightmare society in that story, is where we're headed. We're teetering on the edge of it. Read the plot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Handmaid's_Tale

Marco McClean

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Yes, billionaires are just as stupid as the rest of us. Why would they be different?

To be a billionaire means you live in a bubble where everyone caters to you and tells you how wonderful you are. In that situation keeping a grip on reality can be very difficult since most everyone you know is always trying to blow smoke up your ass. Consider too that for a billionaire the pursuit of money is replaced by the pursuit of the pursuit. Thus many billionaires never really feel like enough is enough even when it is obvious to us that they do!

Do billionaires ever wonder about about their descendent’s living underground? I doubt the thought ever crosses their minds. In their world it is difficult to imagine descendants ever suffering. I’d consider myself very financially secure with a paltry couple of million and a billionaire will have at least 500 times that. With that much money it is difficult to imagine ever having problems and that much money getting even more money becomes automatic.

There are enough billionaires so that they have evolved a society of their own and since people in general don’t consider people outside their own circle or group much at all billionaires in general can’t ever be dynamos of social change. The system works well for them, why would they change it? A hunger for change simply isn’t there. Billionaires have a hunger to conform or they get really strange. The irony is they don’t have to.

I know one billionaire who is actively involved in trying to make the world a better place. I consider him to be an exception and not the rule. For the most part being in a billionaire bubble puts social problems out of sight and out of mind. When life is raw we think about serious issues. When life becomes comfortable trivial problems replace serious issues.

With billions you are likely to buy yourself a ticket to delusion and you don’t have to spend a cent to get it.

KILL THISTLES NOW!

Navarro Point thistle removing TOMORROW 10am-noon

Hello. You are invited to join us as we remove thistles at Navarro Point on Wednesday, Feb 15th, from 10am until noon. We cancelled last Wednesday due to rain, but will be there this Wednesday if it's not raining, and there's only a 15% chance that there will be rain then. This coastal headland is a stunningly beautiful place to be outside. You can find us in the parking lot on the west side of Highway 1 a half mile south of the Navarro Ridge Road turn-off at 10am. No tools or previous experience are necessary, tho clippers &/or a small spade could help. We hope to see you there this Wednesday at 10am.

Contact me if you have questions.  Tom, 937-1113, tw@mcn.org

JUST IN FROM THE BRIDGE OF THE TITANIC....

http://www.co.mendocino.ca.us/administration/CEOReports.htm

TAKE YOUR VEGETABLE GARDEN TO THE NEXT LEVEL!

Sustainable Home Vegetable Gardening - four-part learning series

This extended learning series offers four classes of hands-on, brains-on training. MCBG Lead Gardener Jaime Jensen teaches the essential skills to develop a strong vegetable garden for years to come. Learn about soil preparation, garden planning, propagation, and harvesting techniques. Course workshops will demonstrate starting with seeds, composting, creating a thriving ecosystem in your own back yard, and fall vegetable gardening know-how. Each class will have a reading and lecture component as well as hands-on training €¦ be prepared to get dirty!

SCHEDULE OF CLASSES

Each class runs from 10:00am to 3:30pm (Lecture 10:00am-1:00pm; hands-on 1:30pm-3:30pm)

FEBRUARY 25

Class No. 1 - Getting Started with Seeds

Each year as the days grow longer the garden offers opportunity for renewal. We start fresh with new seeds and all of the observations from years past to help guide us to success. In this class, we will discuss planning strategies for a successful home vegetable garden, and how to propagate and care for vegetable seedlings.

APRIL 29

Class No. 2 - Real Dirt

As gardeners, we know that the health of the soil determines the health of the plants growing in that soil. This class will explore different ways to work with and improve the soil in your backyard for optimal vegetable gardening. Compost will be built, smelled, touched, discussed and loved on this day.

JUNE 17

Class No. 3 - Gardening for a Thriving Ecosystem

Some of the tiniest critters have the largest populations and play the most significant roles in keeping the garden in balance. This class gives you a basic knowledge of plant and insect relationships in the vegetable garden and how they affect the vitality of the entire garden ecosystem. We will discuss companion planting and pest management.

AUGUST 26

Class No. 4 - Giving in to Fall Vegetable Gardening

The end of summer is all about knowing the right time to start your fall and winter vegetable garden. In this class we will discuss timing and fall vegetables. This is also the time to start thinking and prepping for next spring, so we will also cover the topic of saving seeds and fall soil building techniques.

COST is $35 per class (includes Gardens admission for the day) or $120 to attend all four of the classes with the 4-Class Package. Payment is due upon sign-up. Please note, all workshop fees are non-refundable unless the workshop has been canceled or rescheduled by the Gardens. Please reserve space for your preferred date by phoning 707-964-4352 ext. 16 or stop by The Garden Store at MCBG.

BACKWARDS, MARCH! Your tax dollars--still working:

BraunS/iStockUpdate, 12:30 p.m.: The Oklahoma House Public Health Committee voted to send HB 1441 and HB 1549 to the full House of Representatives for consideration.

In Oklahoma, abortion rights advocates breathed a big sigh of relief when a particularly draconian measure, requiring a woman seeking an abortion to get written approval from the man who impregnated her, was tabled last week. That sigh may have come too soon: The state's House Public Health Committee is set to reconsider HB 1441 today. The proposal would require a woman to get written permission for an abortion from the biological father, identify him to her doctor in writing, and allow him to demand a paternity test. This measure is the latest in a series of efforts to limit access to abortion in Oklahoma. Gov. Mary Fallin, a Republican, has signed 20 anti-abortion bills over the course of her six-year tenure, including measures that tripled the waiting period from 24 to 72 hours and banned the use of telemedicine to administer medication abortion. Initially, state Rep. Justin Humphrey called his proposal an effort to make sure fathers support their child from conception, but as the Intercept reports, the lawmaker clarified his position when he said:

I believe one of the breakdowns in our society is that we have excluded the man out of all of these types of decisions. I understand that [women] feel like that is their body. I feel like it is a separate—-what I call them is, is you're a "host." And you know when you enter into a relationship you're going to be that host and so, you know, if you pre-know that then take all precautions and don't get pregnant. Humphrey did not respond to a request for comment from Mother Jones.

SANSKRIT TOE NAILS

Resting Comfortably in One's Own SvarUpa

Just sitting quietly here in an Emperor Norton Inn room in San Francisco, not identified with the body (although sufficient time was allocated this morning for teeth brushing, shaving, a hot shower, toe nail clipping, etc.), and watching but doing nothing about mental thought creations. Resting comfortably in the spiritual heart center, identified in Sanskrit as the SvarUpa. The Absolute continuously flows through the fit instrument to accomplish its higher will on the earth plane.  This is the basic explanation of how to be here properly, which is taught in India by senior spiritual teachers. While the surge of confusion in Washington D.C. enlarges, on a world stage which is equally lost in darkness and constantly manufacturing its own misery, the instruction from the great spiritual traditions is to remain centered. The individual will be fully utilized by the Absolute, and as reported in the historic epics, demons will be vanquished and righteousness restored. So kick back, make yourself a cup of Tulsi tea, resting comfortably in your own spiritual center (SvarUpa), because as a Jivanmukta you are always effortlessly cooperating with the Absolute, knowing that we will automatically play our parts well.

Craig Louis Stehr

ANY DAY NOW

Any day now I will hear you say "Goodbye, my love"
And you'll be on your way
Then my wild beautiful bird, you will have flown, oh
Any day now I'll be all alone, whoa-oa-oa-oa-oa

Any day now, when your restless eyes meet someone new
Oh, to my sad surprise
Then the blue shadows will fall all over town, oh
Any day now love will let me down, whoa-oa-oa-oa-oa

Oh my wild beautiful bird, you will have flown, oh
Any day now I'll be all alone

I know I shouldn't want to keep you
If you don't want to stay-ay
Until you go forever
I'll be holding on for dear life
Holding you this way
Begging you to stay

Any day now when the clock strikes "Go"
You'll call it off
And then my tears will flow
Then the blue shadows will fall all over town, oh
Any day now love will let me down cuz you won't be around

Don't fly away, my beautiful bird
Don't, don't fly away

–Bob Hilliard (words) & Burt Bacharach (music)